


A Place to Belong, or four portraits Neal Caffrey never finished, and one that he did.

by alaranth_88



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaranth_88/pseuds/alaranth_88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal is an artist, even when he's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place to Belong, or four portraits Neal Caffrey never finished, and one that he did.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Waltzmatildah](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Waltzmatildah).



> This was written for Waltzmatildah, through the amazing fan-auction FandomAid she ran for the Queensland Floods of 2010-11.
> 
> Spoilers for White Collar up to episode 2.11

### One

When Neal first arrives in New York, he knows he's home. It is early fall, and the bright leaves glow in the setting sun as people rush by, and Neal knows he never wants to live anywhere else. He is a stranger in a strange city, but that's okay - he is a stranger everywhere else as well. It has been years since he had a place to call his own. New York will be the place that is his, a place he can belong.

And if there is still something missing, still a hole somewhere in his chest that is resolutely empty, he can ignore it for now. Soon that becomes easier still - he has new people to play with.

The secret of the long con, Mozzie tells him, is to become your character as much as possible. If you can believe in the role yourself, it makes it much easier for the mark to believe as well. Neal is nothing if not an eager pupil. He dives headlong into his role as Adler's assistant, trying his utmost to please the man who slowly educates Nick (and Neal) in appreciating the finer things in life. As the weeks tick by, as he learns how to appreciate quality wine and the importance tailored suits, Adler becomes the centre of Nick's world. Of course this makes sense. Nick has no reason for existence outside of Adler's life, outside the con. But still - Neal has never been so wrapped up in someone else's life, not ever, not for any reason, and he doesn't know if he likes it or not.

Nick spends his days watching Adler: the clench of his jaw when he is displeased, the wrinkle between his brows when he frowns, the calculation in his eyes as he laughs. And if Vincent is Nick's first priority all day long, he can't find it in himself to be surprised when the man seeps slowly into Neal's life as well.

All these things Nick sees follow him home to Neal's apartment, and Mozzie never told him how to stop Nick taking up too much space in Neal's life. It is easy (too easy) to let Adler creep into the empty place in his chest, to relax in the comfort of belonging to someone. But he doesn’t (shouldn’t, mustn't) belong to Adler. He can't let this thing become any stronger than it already has, can't let these feelings influence the job.

It becomes a nightly struggle to become Neal again, to get rid of Nick and Adler, to think outside of the frame he has built for himself. Some nights he doesn’t even try.

So Neal paints the things Nick sees, pieces of a whole he will never really have or know: the angle of a raised eyebrow, the quirk of a lip, the rich brown of an eye. He removes them from himself and keeps them safe, separate, in oil and canvas. It is an imperfect solution, he knows, but it is the only one he has. This is the first face he has painted since the car accident that stole his mother away and it is comforting, reassuring, familiar. She would not have approved.

And then suddenly Vincent is gone and he has to find a way to be Neal again. He must let Nick go and not let the hurt and betrayal that Nick feels, that Neal shouldn’t be feeling, overwhelm him. Now he needs to find a way to put Neal and Kate together in a way that will (he hopes) last longer than Nick's five months of existence.

He burns the canvases.

 

### Two

At first, Kate enjoys modelling for Neal. She likes to sit and be admired, is perfectly happy to stare into the distance for hours while Neal works to capture the fall of her hair, the tone of her lips, the play of light across her skin. He is endlessly fascinated by every aspect of her. They spend afternoons in their apartment, her lounging on the couch as he works in oils, in charcoal, even once in clay. Their apartment. Neal belongs here, belongs to Kate and her beautiful, mysterious smile. He feels complete in every part. He is happy.

But then Kate gets tired of the stillness, is annoyed at Neal's focus on the canvas and not on her. The smell of the oil-paint and turps gives her a headache, the charcoals drop dust over her clean floor, the clay clogs the sink.

And while the works are technically accurate, certainly an excellent likeness, try as he might he can never capture that something. There is a hidden light behind Kate's eyes, the essence of her that he loves so much, which continues to elude him no matter the medium or pose. So he stops trying, because (he thinks) he can copy a masterpiece he cannot create one in his own right.

Mozzie rolls his eyes, tells him that the work fine, Neal, quit being such a tortured arh-tiste. But Neal never really considers any likeness of her to be truly finished. (He keeps them all anyway.)

 

### Three

Alex is both straight-forward and complex, familiar and inscrutable. The game they play between them is effortless, as natural to Neal as breathing. It is a twisting and turning of truth and fiction, belief and disbelief, until it becomes something so complex it can distract Neal from the near-constant ache in his chest since he left New York (since he left Kate). Alex is movement, skill and a light high laugh as they plot and plan, bicker and steal. These games he can take comfort in, transient though it always must be. He doesn’t want to belong to her. He knows she wishes he did.

One afternoon in Copenhagen, she sits for him. As they wait for the sun to go down, she gazes out the window at the busy city in a pose strikingly similar to the harbour's famous mermaid. He uses the supplies left over from the Rembrandt that will buy their entry that night. She sits well, but the light soon dies as the sun sets. It gilds her hair orange and gold, and it is time to go to work.

Neal never sees the canvas again, thinks it was probably destroyed to eliminate any record of their presence in Denmark. They were on the move constantly, never staying long enough to put down any roots or leave any evidence behind. Alex will never admit that it hangs in the bedroom of a house she certainly doesn’t own.

 

### Four

Fencing with Sara is exhilarating. She is stunningly intelligent and not a little ruthless in her dogged pursuit of the Raphael and chases him wholeheartedly for months. She appears wherever he goes, whenever he least expects her. Neal will never admit how many canvases he went through trying to capture her sharp smile.

But they are never more than sketches, and then he has suddenly lost the next four years of his life. There will be no portraits in supermax.

 

### And One

It has been years since Neal was last permitted brushes. Or paints, canvas, an easel. His first destination after Peter leaves him alone on that first afternoon is a small shop where the air is heavy with the (oh, so familiar) reek of oil and turps. But paints are a luxury he can't afford yet, not on the pittance the Bureau has given him and with clothes to buy. He runs his fingers over the tubes, fingers the brushes gently, then turns abruptly and walks out. And if there is a queasiness in his stomach when he leaves the supplies behind, well, he can pretend it's just his digestion reacting to food it hasn’t seen in four years. And the stinging of his eyes as he walks out the door empty-handed is only the brightness of the sun.

But after June has taken him in, when he has a comfortable bed to sleep in and Devore suits to wear, he goes back and buys everything he could possibly need. He stays up all night luxuriating in colour. This, this is where he belongs, in tone and line and shape and form. In the infinite shades of colour, with an ache in his wrist from the familiar weight of the palette to which his muscles are no longer accustomed. In the spicy scent of turps, in the paint under his nails and on his nose. This is home no matter where he is. This is where he belongs.

 

Several months later, June smiles proudly as her guests admire the work over the mantelpiece. Neal looks on, lurking in a corner as he watches people exclaim over his work. It is beautiful. He has captured her kind smile, the sparkle in her eyes, the lines on her face drawn by years of laughter and of mourning.

It has taken some time for Neal to be comfortable enough in his place here, in his two-mile cage. He still has days where the tightness of it itches, and it is all he can do to not run. Some days he hates the familiarity of New York. But it is getting easier as time passes, with the roots that he can't seem to stop putting down

And while he had thought it would be easy enough to give June something back, he had been amazed at how easily she sprang from his brush. The portrait was complete in a matter of days, the first he has ever done that he considers truly finished since he first came to the big city. It seems something about being settled, firmly and tightly leashed, suits him. He hasn't even thought about stealing anything in weeks (well, ok, days. But it wasn't a serious thought).

He is already planning future pictures. Maybe he can convince Peter to let Elizabeth sit for him? Mozzie refuses to allow his image to be captured even by a camera; he would never even consider something as substantial a portrait. Maybe a sculpture?

Ideas buzz as June beckons him forward into the chattering crowd. He lets the noise wash over him, and the images and ideas in his head fade to the background as he smiles and flirts with June's friends. But that’s ok. He has plenty of time to think about them later. He isn't going anywhere.

 

 _Fin_


End file.
